Scenic Route

Old friends Mitchell and Carter are on a road trip together. We don't know from where to where they are going, but they are in the middle of the desert (Nevada?). Mitchell is on crutches. Again, we are never really told what happened.

What we do know is that Carter stages a car breakdown because they don't talk anymore like they used to and he manufactures a situation where they have no choice but to talk. And while they're there he goes off on Mitchell for having given up on his dream on becoming a musician and marrying the "rebound-girl" after breaking up with the love of his life.

But first, they kick the shit out of each other. This happens before the credits. Mitchell has a broken nose and a bloody face and Carter does not move after one final blow. This is the intro.

Then we go back to the previously mentioned car trouble and the fight (first verbal) that follow after Carter's go at a life intervention and Mitchell finding out that his friend has simply removed a wire from the car to keep them stranded. He owns up when a passing car offers them a ride into town. Before the helpful man is allowed to drive off, Carter has to start the car to prove to Mitchell that he fixed it.

It is only after the driver left and some more fighting that the car is really broken. More yelling, blaming each other and the fight from the beginning follow. Mitchell comes to and Carter is still not moving. Mitchell mourns over the body of his friend and eventually starts digging a grave in the desert. As he pulls the body towards it, however, it tunes out that Carter is still alive. When he now realizes that he was about to be buried, he loses it and storms off.

The reunite and suffer together through the heat during the day, the cold nights and the lack of water. As a last ditch effort they stumble off in the direction where Mitchell thinks a town may be and eventually come to the remains of what used to be a small group of houses. But at least they find water.

And then suddenly a cell rings and they have reception again (hurray!) and are saved.

Or are they?

6/10

The X Files: Young at Heart

Yet again, Mulder gets hunted by someone from his past. This time it is one John Barnett. During his very first FBI case, Mulder had the possiblity to shot Barnett, who held a gun to a hostage. Going by the book, Mulder did not take the shot, which cost the hostage (actually, Barnett's original complice) and an FBI agent (father of two) their lives.

Not Barnett is back from the supposed dead - with certificate stating that he died of cardiac arrest four years previously - to take his revenge on Mulder. In the wake of the hunt - the FBI's for Barnett or whoever this may be claiming to be him, Barnett's for Mulder and his assorted friends - Mulder's fromer mentor falls victim to the culprit and Scully gets this close to being killed, as well.

As if this were not enough going on already, there is also the question of what really happened to Barnett and why is he not dead as he is said to be. Dead, cremated, ashes spread. In comes a Dr. Ridley (aka Dr. Mengele aka Dr. Frankenstein - so called by his peers), who has secretly been conducting human experiments in order to reverse aging.

Barnett is his only success story, young and healthy looking - except for the eyes, they look pretty dead. Somehow he had to grow a new arm for all this. They do explain the connection in a very civil and quite discussion, but the details escape me. Barnett's right hand - previously removed by Dr. Ridley - did grow back, but looking more amphibian than human. This has nothing to do with the story of the episode, really. It looks pretty weird, though.

In the end, Mulder does kill Barnett like he should have all those years ago.

6/10

The X Files: Lazarus

Again, the title tells you everything you need to know. No beating around the bush. A man dies and gets resurrected. In this day and age (meaning the mid-1990's) of advanced medicine, people are brought back to life all the time. What is rather unusual is that two people die at the same time and when one body is resucitated, the spirit/soul/personality of the other comes back to life. So, the first of a few body switch/shape shifting episodes The X Files have brought us over the years.

The formerly dead guy is Agent Jack Willis, a former lover of Scully (yes, former used to have a love life, as well). He has been hunting a thieving/murdering couple for a long time and gets shot along with Warren James Dupre, who now inhabits his body.

Mulder suspects something is wrong, of course. He knows that Scully and Willis share a birthday for example and Willis is right-handed. He tests this new Willis by asking him to sign Scully's birthday card (two months early) and Willis does so with his left hand.

Dupre is not really interested in pretending to be Willis. He just uses this situation as a means to an end. He want to find his wife again and when he does so, the duo decide to make a quick buck by trading Scully for 1,000,000 $. Dupre's wife, Lula, however, had actually planned to get rid of her spouse and sold him out to the FBI and that is how he got shot in the first place.

The moment she choses to reveal this to Willis/Dupre and Scully is when Scully is about to give him an insulin shot. Willis is diabetic, which Dupre doesn't know and he has drunk enourmous amounts of soda, and is now in dire need of the medicine. Lula steps on the saving bottle of insulin but makes a mistake eventually, when she believes Willis to have died and gets too close to throw the wedding ring at him. Willis snaps awake, takes her gun, and shoots her just as the FBI is taking down the door to rescue him and Scully.

The second death takes.

6/10

The X Files: Gender Bender

This is what it says on the tin - a person that can change from female form into male and vice versa. Of course, this is an alien we are talking about.

Oops. Did I just give away the ending there?

After five victims along the coast (starting up in Massachusetts and going South) are found that apparently died right after sex, Mulder and Scully start investigating around the town a case with the MO occurred. It just so happens that a group of the citizens of the small town they travel to are members of a sect called The Kindred.

Now, The Kindred have a certain touch. This is not a euphemism. They touch your hand in a certain way, you will let them bed you no questions asked. Scully gets dangerously close to one of them, who turns out to be the killers former best friend.

Other strange things happen around the group, like Mulder swears he recognizes some of the people from a photograph that is supposedly from the 1930s. Also, the members of the sect don't die, they are just prepped up for some sort of hibernation that brings them back good as new.

This case the agents do not solve. Or they do, but the culprit escapes them, because the sect "takes care of their own" and they do. They collect the wayward member and disappear into thin air.

Upwards.

This episode sees the first appearance of Nicholas Lea, but not as the role X Files fans will get to know him (and love him or hate him) in, Alex Krycek. Here he is a would be victim that gets picked up in a bar by the murderous man/woman/alien.

5/10

The X Files: Beyond the Sea

The kidnapping of two college students co-incides with a family tragedy. Scully loses her father (after having a vision of him sitting in her living room trying to tell her something without actually making a sound).

As if that alone weren't enough to keep the agents busy, a conviced serial killer, Luther Lee Boggs, awaiting his execution, offers up information on the recently kidnapped kids. How does he know? Through his 'psychic powers'. Mulder, knowing Boggs, does not believe for a minute that the guy knows anything other than what he may have learned simply by being involved in the actual crime.

He wants to be granted a permanent stay of execution, but Mulder does not play ball. Scully, however, has some rather weird encounters with Boggs, who channels her late father and speaks out warnings against certain symbols that are a little to close to actuality. Like, he would talk of a waterfall that Scully later sees (sort of, it is acually a sign for the Niagara Hotel) and warn Mulder to stay away from the cross (he doesn't, which doesn't end well for him).

So, for once, Mulder is the sceptic and Scully is the believer.

It is interesting to see their roles reversed. Mulder can't believe that after having witnessed so much unexplained phenomena, she choses to believe in psychic powers where he believes that there are none. Scully is uncomfortable with going against Mulder, with having to deal with supernatural signs, her father's passing.

Emotionally, she is a wreck, but once again she is left holding the reigns, because Mulder was shot and is in the hospital for the better part of the episode.

My favorite bits are the two times Boggs is shown going to the gas chamber, a walk during which he sees every person he killed standing in the corridor in a pretty b/w shot.

Hey, isn't that...?
Scully's father is played by Don S. Davis, whom I have only ever seen in US military uniform. He played Major Briggs, father of Bobby Briggs, in Twin Peaks. Looking through his list of credits, it looks like he was very comfortable in that uniform. He always appears to be a kind of authority figure, friendly enough but not willing to take shit from anybody (see the scene in Twin Peaks, when Bobby lights up at the dinner table and Major Briggs slaps him across the face without breaking stride and sends the cigarette flying onto his wife's dinner plate).

Luther Lee Boggs is portrayed by Brad Dourif. When this episode of The X Files aired he was best known for playing young Billy Bibbit in One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, a role that got him an Oscar nomination. He has since had a small role as Wormtongue in the second installment of The Lord of the Rings.

7/10

The X Files: Fire

It has been 8 months since I last watched an episode of The X Files. Which is to say it has been much too long. So, onwards to the next one in season 1: Fire.

Here, we learn a smidge of Mulder's past, back when he apparently had a social life or, more to the point, a love life. Onto the scene comes an annoyingly British agent from Scotland Yard, Mulder's former lover Phoebe Green. And, no, I don't much care for this character. She's not even all that nice to look at, with a destinctly 1990's tough-girl hairdo, often regarded as a lesbian tell (not by me).

The case is one of fire, that looks an aweful lot like spontaneous combustion but is definitely murder. The culprit is a man who appears to control fire, Lighting a cigarette, his hand, a building, or a person, through his thought. His targets are English gentlemen of distinction. He poses as 'Bob', the local caretaker at a house in the States (New England, near Boston).

Now here is another thing we learn about Mulder: he hates fire. So, this is not the best case to be working on, least of all with the tricky Phoebe, who rather enjoyes making Mulder squirm. Scully doesn't like Phoebe from the get-go. Bless her.

Anyway, in order to save some British Lord and his family from the previously mentioned 'Bob' (no, this is none of the FBI's business, really, but such is the power of Phoebe) Mulder will have to overcome his fear and literally go through fire.

The hero of the piece, however, is Agent Scully. Initially, she is excused from the case, because Mulder doesn't want her wasting her time on Phoebe's little games. But Scully being Scully, she cannot stay away and has a sneak in the file. She goes off on her own and follows her hunches and eventually finds the evidence that leads the team to the elusive killer.

Overall, an uneven episode, since the addition of an outsider to throw a wrench into the works of Mulder/Scully is just that: an outsider. There have been other, better guests before and after.

5/10

Open Grave

When Sharlto Copley (whose name, turns out much much later is actually Jonah but we will go with "John Doe" for the time being) wakes up he has no clue who he is or what is going on. But that's alright, because neither do we.

And why is he in a pit full of dead people (hint: this is the open grave from the title)? This will be later explained.

Why are his joints cracking? This will not be addressed.

He digs himself out of his grave and stumbles after a Japanese woman he has seen looking over the edge. When he comes upon a house he finds a group of handsome strangers. They are not quite sure who they are, either, but they have found pictures and hints from which they have deducted their names.

One is quite handy with weaponry while another appears to be speaking several languages fluently (French, Italian, Latin). The Japanese woman, meanwhile, doesn't speak at all. The consent is that she does not know English, but later is said to be mute (but not deaf, mind you).

Piece by piece the handsome circle of, um, friends? co-workers? random strangers? start remembering out of context bits of informatiion. When put together, these probably make a pretty clear picture of what happened. But, alas, they only exchange their recollections too late in the film to be of much help.

They also get attacked by obviously sick people that like hurting themselves. One of them is entwined in a barbed wire fence and lures the weapons expert (he is there to protect the group) with cries of help. As soon as he gets the chance, however, he offs him and laughs hysterically.

Some of the locals are not sick but hurl insults at the Copey character. They are the ones that call him Jonah and tell him to get away from them with his injections. Our group of handsome survivors start doubting themselves, because everything points to them - or maybe only Jonah - having conducted some sort of experiment that caused the whole dilemma.

But, luckily, as more memories return, they are the good guys, after all. They are there to help the infected people. Alas, they failed. When some sort of (untested) medicine wears off, they start forgetting again. Rough.

As their numbers dwindle, only three scientists and the Japanese woman are left standing. When they hear the helicopters coming, they believe themselves to be safe at last. But the soldiers are their to dispose of any witnesses of the disaster. Of course they are.

John Doe/Jonah flees and hides in the - you guessed it - open grave where all the bodies get dumped. The Japanese woman is remarkably self sufficient. She escaped the soldiers unscarred and rescues him out of the pit. At this point he is back to where he started - with no memory of what happened.

Luckily, another scientist (his lover, but he has forgotten that and she is dead now) wrote him and herself a note. Unluckily, he doesn't even see it among the bodies.

Lucky for us, then, that her now-deceased off-voice reads it to us and explaines that they were there to help and the Japanese woman needs to be protected because she is immune to the plague (their words, no mine). She urges Jonah to keep up the good work.

But how will he ever know?

As ridiculous as the storyline gets at times, this is surprisingly decent. Most of all, it is well made. The sound of the joints cracking in the beginning alone is very intriguing.

Good bit of entertainment. Just don't think too hard about the little things here and there. They are inconsequential, anyway.

7/10